You increase muscle bulk by training against resistance. For example, weights. And in ballet, this isn't the case.

A good dancer is an educated one, so don't abandon school.

I do take class because I still dance, and yes, I do slip into class with the Royal Ballet from time to time.

At the moment I'm enjoying a new challenge at the Royal Opera House, but I'm also keen to pursue my interest in television and particularly in science.

I think the shape of our bodies has as much to do with the shape of our parents as it does with training.

Because muscle is heavier than fat, dancers weigh more than you might think, but they are usually very lean.

I have lots of interests, but it's true that dancing is a very full-time job.

It's not about weight, it's about fitness, and one component of being fit is to have relatively low body fat, because fat is not very efficient, whereas muscle is.

You increase muscle bulk by training against resistance. For example, weights. And in ballet, this isn't the case.

Young dancers are training at a very vulnerable time in their lives, through adolescence, and while they are trying to work out who they are as people, never mind as a dancer. So train the whole person, not just the dancer.

I always recommend a sensible diet, including lots of carbohydrates and avoiding too much fat. Dancers don't need different fuel from other people - they just need more of it because they use more energy.

Dancing's not always stressful, but I always make sure that I'm prepared as I can be, both physically, mentally, and practically.

But you do have to start young as a dancer if you're going to achieve the physical skills necessary.

It's not magic! It's physics. The speed of the turn is what keeps you upright. It's like a spinning top.

I get to the theatre in plenty of time; I prepare my shoes in advance; I eat and drink the right things at the right time. The rest you have to leave to luck!

As you get older, the physical abilities decrease, which is particularly frustrating because your brain gets so good! So as you are becoming less technically or physically able, younger dancers are emerging who need the space to perform.

It's another myth that dancing distorts or destroys your feet. If you have the right shaped foot to start and a good, strong technique, your feet should be fine.

I think it's useful to experience other types of dance and other cultures, and the life of a classical dancer these days is certainly not all tutus! So experience of other dance forms is a good idea.

People often argue about this. Obviously one of the skills in performance is acting, and you can't expect every Romeo to really be in love with their Juliet!

I've always believed that the facts about dancing are more interesting than the myths, and this was a great chance for me to explore how the human body does such incredible things.

Body language is a very powerful tool. We had body language before we had speech, and apparently, 80% of what you understand in a conversation is read through the body, not the words.

Dancing is a tough career, but I'm glad I spent it at the Royal Ballet.

Body language is a very powerful tool. We had body language before we had speech and apparently 80 of what you understand in a conversation is read through the body not the words.

of what you understand in a conversation is read through the body not the words.

Dance is very, very old. With Louis XIV at Versailles is where ballet started.

I wanted to be a ballet teacher.

Classical ballet will never die.

I've got no plans to be a ballet dancer at the moment.

When life takes me on a new journey, I simply remember the smile my first ballet recital put on my face and I move forward.

Ballet is sort of a mystery to me. And I don't want to unravel that mystery.

The moment the curtain rose on that first ballet, I knew something wonderful and new had come into my life. I can still see the first scene. The ballet was Divertimento No. 15.

My grandmother had a Miss Margaret's School of Dance to teach tap and ballet to kids, but I never studied it. I was raised a Mormon and they're dancing fools. It's the only vice they have - dancing.

The real beauty of it - key to my life was playing key chords on a banjo. For somebody else it may be a golf club that mom and dad put in their hands or a baseball or ballet lessons. Real gift to give to me and put it in writing.

My background is somewhat unusual, as I trained to be a ballet dancer. I worked in the theatre for eight or nine years as a contemporary dancer. But as an actor one does read Shakespeare and does try to learn the classics.

However, the moral center of New York City, I believe, is the New York City Ballet.

I have ballet class every other day for two hours. And for "Six Feet Under", last week there was a sequence where I had to do a whole choreographed dance number, so I had four hours of dance practice every day.

I do take class because I still dance, and yes, I do slip into class with the Royal Ballet from time to time.

And it is always Easter Sunday at the New York City Ballet. It is always coming back to life. Not even coming back to life - it lives in the constant present.

It's no good running a pig farm badly for 30 years while saying, 'Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.' By then, pigs will be your style.

For 24 hours a day, for 10 years, all I thought about was being in a band. That's all I did. I had no other social life. I don't want my life to be like that now. I've spent the past 10 years having a real life as well. But Spandau Ballet is such a difficult shadow to outrun.

When other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers I kind of wanted to be a vampire.

The New York City Ballet is always about the realm of possibilities, the realm of what the human body can do, what the human spirit can do. And it's about listening, it's about listening to remarkable music and how we respond to that.

I used to dance when I was younger - ballet and modern dance.

At the ballet, you really feel like you're in the presence of something outside the rest of your life. Higher than the rest of your life.

I went to ballet school for nine years, and there was an agent for the whole school who happened to be there visiting one of the performances. She suggested an audition.

Wrestling is ballet with violence.

My Mom is a ballet director, so I had this idea in me that classical training is the best foundation for anything you do, so I wanted to get a classical background and voice.

I wanted to give people - which is fairly bizarre considering my whole life is contemporary dance really - I wanted to give people a really fulfilling sense that they had seen a white classical ballet - in a very pure form.

I grew up studying ballet; I grew up honing my craft.